Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen

   
 Bob, Josephina, and their pet goat live along the US/Mexico border. They often provide food and comfort to the poor and desperate people passing by their ranch seeking a better life. Bob, an old Marine, has declared war on the invasive Border Patrol spy drone that is invading his privacy and the stinking javelinas that are ruining his garden. But when Bob uncovers a group of young Middle Easterners, masquerading as Latinos, he enlists the help of his drinking buddies and they set out to find and to thwart the mission of what must be, Arab terrorists. Ride the bumpy desert roads with Bob and his colorful collection of misfits as they execute Operation Raghead.

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Linda’s Kitchen is a collection and consolidation of Linda’s favorite recipes from her 63 years cooking. Some recipes are passed down family traditions like her Pork Green Chile and Red Chile Ribs, while others are more common and familiar. Regardless of the source, these are our favorites. Enjoy!

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   This is Bob and Linda’s story, a tale of a young, Anglo, high-school dropout, his Mexican American teenage wife, and their 64-years living in thirty homes in eleven states and two countries Linda says, “We never set out to be gypsies. We just moved a lot for what seemed like good reasons at the time. This chronicle of our sixty plus years together is a tribute to how much a couple can endure if they love each other, build and maintain strong family ties, and just hang in there

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   Relive some exciting historical events in Luna County, New Mexico in Bob Rockwell’s new book, While the Wind Blew. You’ll sit around a pit house fire in 1154 AD with Hateya, a young Mimbres mother and mourn the drought and hunger in her village. You’ll ride with Coronado’s conquistadors as Miguel gives us a glimpse into the New Spain of 1541. You’ll blaze a trail with Caleb and the Mormon Battalion, bounce along the Butterfield Overland Mail route with Molly, and you’ll attack settlers with Cochise and his Chiricahua Apache warriors. Bob creates engaging characters who share with us slices of Luna County history as if they were actually there. How else could we feel the fear and the boredom of manning the guard tower at Fort Cummings in 1867, or agonizingly shoveling the sand and dust out the remains of old Camp Cody to build a new TB sanitarium, or what it was like to do back-breaking work in our fields as a humble Mexican Bracero. He reminds us that of our history is not heartwarming. Tim will give you the copilot’s seat in his small plane as you smuggle a ½ ton of marijuana into the U. S. and Arthur will share with you the case he’s building against the Mafia pension-fund racketeers running the largest company here in Luna County. And, you’ll relive the exciting history of two of our most famous and interesting women. Lotte Deno boasts of her days as the gambling queen of the Wild West and Madam Mille gives us a view into what it was like to be a Harvey Girl and some insight into the career that made famous.

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Is it just me or did our country, as we know it, change radically during the past year. I know the pandemic had a major impact on all our lives, but I sense something even more sinister has happened and is still happening. I’m talking about the extreme divisiveness in our country today. We can’t seem to agree on anything and even more alarming, we’re ready to go to blows with anybody who disagrees with us.

Can you believe American parents are fighting (throwing punches) over whether or not their child should wear a mask to school. We used to be able to argue this sort of thing out, take a vote, and do what the majority decided. You grumbled if you disagreed with the decision, and if you really disagreed you could start an opposition movement. But you went with the flow until the decision was changed. Isn’t that the American way?

What’s going on in America today is some form of anarchy or civil disobedience. I don’t know what to call it but it’s shaking the underpinning of our once great nation. Notice I said “once great nation” because we’ve fallen a long way in a short period of time. Take for instance the insurrection at our capitol on January 6^th. Those violent citizens, if you can call them that, were shouting “Hang Mike Pence” among other equally appalling slogans. They were actually advocating hanging our Vice President and doing extreme harm to Nancy Pelosi and any other government official they could find in their raid. That was a clear and unambiguous intention to commit murder, the murder of our Vice President.

I find the whole episode of January 6^th extremely disturbing, but not as disturbing as those jerks in our congress who want to sweep this tragic event under the rug and pretend that it never happened. We had a lynch mob out to hang our Vice President and large part of our congress think that was okay? I’ve heard that these idiots are afraid to take a stand on this issue out of a fear of irritating Donald Trump and ruining their reelection chances. Is that who we’ve become?

A lot is going on in our once great country besides arguing about the worst riot in American history. Let’s see, we have airline passenger violence completely out of control. We’ve had well over 3,000 incidences of unruly passenger behavior on our commercial flights so far this year. So when we’re not beating up our flight attendants, what else are we doing?

We’re killing each other, that’s what. 2021 is set to be the worst year for gun violence in two decades. We’ve had nearly 300 mass shooting across our country and another 10,000 Americans have died from gun violence, up 24% from last year. Can you believe 300 more Sandy Hooks and El Paso Walmarts and we’re only half way through 2021.

So when we’re not storming our capitol, beating up stewardesses, or shooting each other how are we spending our time?, Beating up Asians Americans, that’s how. Asian hate crimes were up 164% for the first quarter of this year. A man was arrested in San Francisco for stabbing two Asian women in a totally unprovoked attack while another two Asian women were attacked in New York City by a woman who demanded they remove their masks, then struck one of them in the head with a hammer. Is this who we are or what we’re become?

And, many Americans seem to be returning to their distant, and shameful racist roots. The recent protests and public reaction to George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement have re-sparked notions of racial superiority and fueled the growth of our white supremacy groups. These neo-Nazi imbeciles hate all nonwhites, Jews, and all immigrants and minorities regardless of their color. They aspire to build a new nation, a nation of an embattled white majority. A nation they couldn’t run if we gave it to them. They would only end up hating each other, because hate is all they know.

We looked on in horror as The Proud Boys, The Oath Keepers and QAnon in their barbaric outfits and waving seditionist flags stormed our capitol last January. Where did these lowlifes come from and why do we let them continue to spread their hate and violence? We’ve got to finally put a stake through the heart of these and the other hate groups. Is the KKK still alive and well in America hiding under these new names?

Nowhere is our new divisiveness more visible than in our congress. We’ve always had radical extremes on both ends of the political spectrum opposed to each other, but the bulk of congress would just do what they thought was right or what they thought would get them reelected, but not now. The two sides of the aisle are at each other throats as if we have two totally different governments fighting for power. It’s amazing they get anything done—or are they?

Is this the legacy of Donald Trump: violent and deadly eruptions over anything and everything we disagree with, the resurgence of white supremacy and neo-Nazism, a return to the isolationism and anti-immigration of many years past, and a government that would rather fight than govern? If this is what we’ve become, I want no part of it.

I’m so disgusted with all of this, but I don’t know what to do. Howard Beale (Peter Finch) said it best in the film Network when in the middle of his newscast stood and shouted, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

“Did you see those people?” I ask Linda, “They’re wearing masks.”

“And look at those lines at the cash registers. Everyone is spaced apart. Do you suppose that’s ‘social distancing’,” she asks knowing the answer.

It’s mid April, 2020 and we’ve just arrived at our daughter’s in Phoenix. We stopped at a grocery store to shop for tonight’s dinner, and we see our first signs of the impending pandemic. So far, the only new behavior we’ve seen in Deming is the almost comical stock-piling of toilet paper. Our two local markets are completely out of stock. Is that how we plan to combat the coming Corona virus, by hoarding toilet tissue?

On our way home we talk about what we saw in Phoenix and decide we’re going to follow all of the guidelines being advocated by the experts: masks, social distancing, frequent hand washing, and quarantining at home. I’m especially worried about Linda, she has an impaired immune system due to a medicine she takes for something totally unrelated. We agree that I will do the shopping and run all of the errands, while she stays home. I tell her to stock up on reading material and puzzles because it’s going to be a long summer.

We live like this for nearly six months when Linda and her friend decide that we should get together once a week for an evening together. We start playing Scrabble at each other’s house on Friday evenings. They are the first guests we’ve had in months and we’re thrilled to be living a somewhat normal life again, even if only for only a few hours a week. We’re healthy, the hors d’oeuvres and wine are great, but more importantly we’re with friends, and we’re having fun.

That was until a Tuesday afternoon when we learn that our friends have both tested positive for the Corona virus. We rush to the hospital to take our tests. We pace the floor for three days waiting for the results. When the call comes in from the New Mexico DOH, we hug, answer it on our speaker phone, and break out in tears when we learn that we both tested positive. We’re healthy, but well into our 70’s, and Linda has a number of underlying medical conditions. We wonder without saying aloud, “Have we just received our death sentence?”

I read everything I can find, which isn’t much, on the virus. It seems that fever, chills, shortness of breath, and the loss of the sense of taste are the first symptoms we should expect. But, the first changes we notice are a worsening of Linda’s nausea and diarrhea and my on-going sinus infection has moved into overdrive.

Two days later I can’t get out of bed. I feel so-so, but I don’t have enough energy to do anything other than stagger to the bathroom. Linda is still nauseas but she is up and around and taking care of me.

And so it goes for many, many days. My fatigue becomes more severe. I don’t have the strength to think, talk, read, or watch TV. I just lie in bed and stare at the walls and the pictures of our grandchildren on our bedside bookcase. The smile on my grandson, Tim’s face is my only link to reality. One morning I have to call Linda because I don’t have the strength to unscrew the lid from my toothpaste. Is this what the end of life is like?

Additionally, I lose my appetite and have an upset stomach, but I’m too tired to care. I soon develop a big-time case of the chills. I wake up in the wee hours of the morning freezing and shaking so violently that I’m sure the end is near. I fear I’m going to freeze to death in my own bedroom.

The report from our friends, the Scrabble players, is not good. She is on oxygen and in a wheel chair while he is doing a little better. He is taking care of her much like Linda is me.

Early one morning I have to go to the bathroom. I swing my legs to the floor and try to stand. I fall. My legs don’t work. It’s as if they aren’t connected to my body. I can’t move them. My legs aren’t numb or anything, they just seem disconnected from my nervous system. Linda and our son, Rob, get me back in bed, and Rob calls an ambulance out of fear and desperation. The EMT comes, tests my oxygen level, pronounces me within range, wishes me luck, and leaves. He wants no part of a virus infected family or their house.

I don’t know how I look but Linda and Rob are scared, really scared. They load me in the car and take me to the emergency room at our local hospital. She knows that our local hospital is not seeing or treating Corona virus cases, but she doesn’t know what else to do.

Linda parks and leaves me in the car while she runs inside. Soon an orderly comes out with a wheelchair and wheels me into a separate room through a private, side entrance. They aren’t letting me anywhere near the ER, the lobby, or the rest of the hospital. I’m in quarantine, in a cell. A nurse comes in, wearing two masks and layers of protective gowns. She takes my vitals and tells me the doctor will be in shortly. I lie there for two hours or so before the doc finally comes in wearing an outfit similar to the nurse’s. He stands back careful to not to touch me or anything else in the room. He quizzes me on my symptoms and leaves. The nurse comes back into the room and tells me I am being released and the doctor has called in a number of prescriptions for me.

Linda brings me home and our son goes to pick up my drugs. I lie in bed anxious to take the medicine that was just prescribed. Maybe I’ll finally feel better, or even recover. Rob brings home a dozen bottles of vitamins and minerals, most of which are to strengthen my immune system. It is then that I realize that I am on my own. I have to fight and cure this cursed disease all by myself. I can’t expect any help from the medical community.

The days drag on. I’m not getting any worse, but I’m not getting any better either. I just lie in bed staring at the walls. Then the call from hell comes. Our friend has just passed away. He was taken to the hospital for pneumonia three times and on the third time his heart gave out. But his wife, once the sickest of our group, is recovering.

After sixty-five days, weak but properly dressed, I go back to the hospital for testing. I test negative.

Hooray! I did it. I licked it. I’ll survive.

 ***

As I’m writing this I’m reminded that I haven’t fully recovered or think I ever will. I’m really lazy now, too lazy to do almost anything other than the smallest chores. I wrote my first short story last week. The first thing I’ve written in over eight months. In addition to laziness, all of the little health issues I had before COVI-19 now seem worse. My sinuses run constantly, and I have a host of other little annoying things to deal with. And, even more disconcerting, I now feel old for the first time in my life, really old. Old!

I’ve talked to my doctors and read articles about the lingering effects of COVID, but no one seems to know anything. So, I developed two theories:

Theory 1. My immune system had to ignore all of the other things going on with me so it could focus exclusively on the deadly virus. It beat the virus but had to let the other stuff go unchecked for a couple of months.

Theory 2. Over two months of total bed rest has had a lasting negative effect on me. Being immobile and doing absolutely nothing accelerated my aging. I feel as if I’m at least five to ten years older now than I was just a few months ago.

Old and lazy, but alive!

I’ve been trying to remember when I learned to pole vault, but I can’t. It’s like when did I learn to tie my own shoes, catch a baseball, or recite the Lord’s Prayer? These things are just some of countless stuff we learn in our childhoods.

My dad was a serious jock. He played old leather-helmet, single-wing football and was a super star in track and field. He won the 1938 Nebraska state high school championship in pole vault using a heavy, old bamboo pole. He also won a college scholarship he and his parents couldn’t afford to accept. I’ve always wondered what he might have accomplished as a college athlete.

Instead, he became my coach and teacher. I must have been seven or eight years old when dad and I erected standards, scrounged the carpet stores for bamboo poles to use as crossbars, meticulously build a regulation box for planting the pole, and spaded up the soil for a slightly softer landing pit. Dad brought home an eight-foot bamboo vaulting pole and I was all set, eager to learn, and anxious to make my father, the old state champion, proud of me.

My dad taught me to sprint down our short back-yard runway carrying my new pole in both hands with the bottom end elevated. As I approach the box, I lower the pole and plant it on a dead run. Now comes the critical part. You must plant the pole as your left foot hits the ground, swing the pole from waist high on your right side to over your head and slide your hands together as your kick hard with my right leg. As you leave the ground you swing around so that you’re upside down and facing the opposite direction as you cross over the crossbar, release the pole, and fall to the ground. Got it?

When you release the pole it generally falls back onto the approach track away from you and all of this crashing to the ground will damage the pole over time, so you need someone to catch your pole. I wore out my mom and dad with pole my catching duties so I introduced a classmate and friend to pole vaulting. He caught on fast and soon became my biggest competitor.

The first formal meet I remember was an elementary school track meet held at the high school’s big track. We competed by grade level and I won my first blue ribbon: Pole Vault, 4^th Grade. And so it went through my elementary and junior high years.

We moved to Denver after I completed the 8^th grade. I was about to compete with big-city boys. I made the varsity football team as a freshman but didn’t get to play much. I was just proud to be on the team. When track season came around I was the school’s only pole vaulter. My coach handed me a brand new 12 foot aluminum pole and I was in heaven. I did well enough that year to earn my varsity letter and was one of the very few freshmen in the “M” club.

The following year I enjoyed some amount of success and was honored to be invited to the CU relays, an annual track and field meet for the top high school and college athletes from all over Colorado. I was on the field with some world-class jocks, an over 15 foot pole vaulter from CU and the world record holder in the shot-put.

My junior year I competed and won the District championship and earned not only a gold medal, but a red star for my high school letter sweater. We were a new high school and I was the first “all-district” athlete in any sport. I strutted around proudly showing off my bright red star. A couple of wrestlers had won conference gold stars, but I had the only red one.

I left high school and never got to compete in what would have been my senior year. I joined the U. S. Marines instead. I thought I had hung up my track shoes forever when an announcement came out about a coming 29 Palms Marine Corps Base intramural track meet. I ran to Special Services (they lend athletic and camping gear to Marines) to see if they had a pole I could use. I came back to my barracks carrying a shinny-new 14 foot aluminum pole. The sergeant in charge of my barracks told me what I could do with “that f—king orange flagpole.” I pleaded with him and he finally let me lay it on the floor out of the way, behind the wall lockers. The next day I went to see my First Sergeant and formally requested permission to enter the meet and to store my pole in the barracks. He gave me permission with one caveat: I had to win.

It had been over a year since I had vaulted, but I was in the best shape of my life. I had more upper body strength now than I had in high school. Vaulting came back to me and I won the base championship easily, setting a new personal best. Soon after our meet we invited the track teams from the other California Marine bases to 29 Palms for a “West Coast Marine” meet. Marine jocks showed up from MCRD San Diego, MCB Camp Pendleton, MCLB Barstow and some of the nearby Navy bases. I took ’em all on and won the title of best Marine pole vaulter on the West Coast. I was honored when some of the really serious Marine jocks invited me to join them on Saturdays at the LA Track Club.

No, my pole vaulting days were over. I was nineteen, a Marine with a wife, a new daughter, and over two years left on my enlistment. I had plans for college but no idea how I was going to earn a living in civilian life.

Fast forward to 1993, I’m the Executive Vice President of a supercomputer company headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. My local salesperson and I had just made a sales call at University of Colorado in Boulder and were headed back to the Denver airport when we realized we had time for a late lunch before catching our flights home. I remembered an old friend; Mike Broncucia, a nephew of my old boss at the gas station I worked at in high school, had opened a popular restaurant just off the turnpike. We found the restaurant and I reintroduced myself to Mike. He remembered me. We started talking about old times and he asked if I went to Mapleton High School. I told him I did back in 1959. He smiled and said my old coach was in the bar.

I was trying to figure out what to say to Coach Appuglise as Mike lead me through the restaurant to the bar. It had been 34 years. I knew Coach won’t remember me.

Mike leads me to a dimly lit table full of old Italian guys. I’m ready to introduce myself when my high school track coach jumps to his feet, grabs and hugs me. Without hesitation he greets me with, “My pole vaulter.”

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Pole vaulting, also known as pole jumping, is a track and field event in which an athlete uses a long and flexible pole, usually made from fiberglass or carbon fiber, as an aid to jump over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the ancient Greeks, Cretans, and Celts. It has been a full medal event at the Olympic Games since 1896 for men and since 2000 for women.

It is typically classified as one of the four major jumping events in athletics, alongside the high jump, long jump, and triple jump. It is unusual among track and field sports in that it requires a significant amount of specialized equipment in order to participate, even at a basic level. A number of elite pole vaulters have had backgrounds in gymnastics. Running speed, however, may be the most dominant factor. Physical attributes such as speed, agility and strength are essential to pole vaulting effectively, but technical skill is an equally if not more important element. The object of pole vaulting is to clear a bar or crossbar supported upon two uprights (standards) without knocking it down

The other night while I was flicking through the Netflix offerings, I realized that I didn’t know any of the stand-up comedians performing today. So, I sat through a host of marginally funny and vulgar performances before I turned off my TV totally disappointed. I learned that Amy Schumer’s female parts don’t smell very good, Margaret Cho has always been a slut, and Louis C.K. likes to jerk off to an audience. How about that for a night of comedy?

Where are the really funny people I’ve always enjoyed? Dead, that’s where. Jacob Rodney Cohen better known as Rodney Dangerfield died in 2004 and left some big shoes that might never be filled.

Who cannot be entertained by Rodney’s long list of self-deprecating one-liners?

• My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
• When I was born the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father, “I’m very sorry. We did everything we could … but he pulled through.”
• My father carries around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet.
• When I played in the sandbox the cat kept covering me up.
• One year they wanted to make me poster boy … for birth control.
• My wife only has sex with me for a purpose. Last night she used me to time an egg.
• Last night my wife met me at the front door. She was wearing a sexy negligee. The only trouble was, she was coming home.
• A girl phoned me and said, “Come on over. There’s nobody home.” I went over. Nobody was home!
• A hooker once told me she had a headache.
• I went to a massage parlor. It was self service.
• When my old man wanted sex, my mother would show him a picture of me.
• I was making love to this girl and she started crying. I said, “Are you going to hate yourself in the morning?” She said, “No, I hate myself now.”
• My psychiatrist told me I’m going crazy. I told him, “If you don’t mind, I’d like a second opinion.” He said, “All right. You’re ugly too!”
• And we were poor too. Why, if I wasn’t born a boy, I’d have nothing to play with!
• I tell ya, my wife was never nice. On our first date, I asked her if I could give her a goodnight kiss on the cheek – she bent over!
• I worked in a pet store and people kept asking how big I’d get.

 

Another one of my absolute favorites was George Denis Patrick Carlin. George Carlin died in 2008. He was a world-class social critic who made fun of everything including taboo subjects like religion, politics, and the English language. Who can forget his The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Some of George’s most memorable lines are:

• Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
• What year did Jesus think it was?
• I’m not into working out. My philosophy is no pain, no pain.
• Why are hemorrhoids called hemorrhoids instead of assteroids?
• I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
• Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
• Where are we going? And what’s with this hand basket?
• One nice thing about egotists: they don’t talk about other people.
• Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
• In America anyone can become President. That’s the problem.
• If God dropped acid, would he see people?
• Have you noticed that most of the women who are against abortion are women you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place, man? There’s such balance in nature.

 

Phyllis Ada Driver, better known as Phyllis Diller died in 2012. Phyllis was best known for her eccentric stage persona, her self-deprecating humor, her wild hair and clothes, and her cackling laugh. She was the first female comic to make it big. Here’s why:

• “Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.”
• “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”
• “I’m at an age where my back goes out more than I do.”
• “On my honeymoon I put on a peek-a-boo blouse. My husband peeked and booed.”
• “Our vet told us that because of my cooking our cat has only two lives left.”
• “We spend the first 12 months of our children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next 12 years teaching them to sit down and shut up.”
• “We had far too many kids. At one point our playpen was standing room only. It looked like a bus stop for midgets.”
• “I was the world’s ugliest baby. I have photos of my folks leaving the hospital with sacks over their heads … I asked my mother how to turn off the electric fan. She said ‘Grab the blade!’”
• “Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves.”
• Talking of her joke husband, “Fang,” (“I’ve been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang.  How about short and cheap?”) she noted, “He hates work. One day he called in dead.”
• Her obese mother: “We still have a souvenir from her last visit. A Persian throw rug. She sat on the cat.”
• Her oversexed sister: “She’s been in more motel rooms than the Gideon Bible.”

Robin McLaurin Williams died in 2014. Robin was a film actor and a stand-up comedian known for his improvisation skills and a host of memorable character voices. He has been called the funniest person of all time. See if you agree.

• You know the difference between a tornado and divorce in the south? Nothing! Someone is losing a trailer.
• We were talking briefly about cocaine … yeah. Anything that makes you paranoid and impotent, give me more of that!
• If women ran the world we wouldn’t have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.
• Do you think God gets stoned? I think … look at the platypus.
• Ah, yes, divorce … from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.
• Politicians are a lot like diapers. They should be changed frequently, and for the same reason.
• Politics: “Poli” a Latin word meaning “many”; and “tics” meaning “bloodsucking creatures”
• Inside of you, there’s a fashion model just waiting to throw up.
• If you’re basically having Frosted Flakes, and you’re older than ten years old and it’s after ten o’clock in the morning … I’m gonna guess: weed may be involved.
• Ta da! You are an alcoholic! And some people say “Robin, I’m a ‘functioning’ alcoholic!” Which is it, you can only be one. It’s like being a paraplegic lap dancer. You can do it, just not as well as the others, really.
• You’ll notice that Bush never speaks when Cheney is drinking water.
• Some things you may want to stay away from while drinking heavily. EBay, not a good idea. EBay and alcoholism, perfect storm of addiction. You’ll find yourself up to your ass in George Foreman grills and ShamWows.
• Being a famous print journalist is like being the best-dressed woman on radio.
• When you look at Prince Charles, don’t you think that someone in the Royal family knew someone in the Royal family?
• After I quit drinking, I realized I am the same asshole I always was; I just have fewer dents in my car.
• Jack Nicholson was with me at a benefit and leaned over and said “even oysters have enemies.” In a very intense voice. I responded with “Increase your dosage.”

 

Now these people were funny, really funny. Where is the next generation?

We’ve been at war for nearly six months and we’re taking causalities at an ever increasing rate. Our deadly, invisible enemy is everywhere and he’s gaining on us. This is not a turf war like the two World Wars or Korea but a war of attrition like Vietnam, so we’re using the body count method to keep score. As of this morning it’s COVID-19 – 176, 248, USA – 0. And even more alarming, the experts are saying it’s going to get even worse. Expect us to reach a quarter of a million deaths this fall. Yeow!

The desperation of this losing battle is playing heavily on me. Knock on wood, I’m not suffering the deadly respiratory disease the virus carries, but I’m fighting a bunch of emotional issues and experiencing feelings that are new to me.

First is ignorance. I’ve never done this before; there are no guidebooks, no experts to turn to, no nothing. We don’t know squat. We are blindly feeling our way along and stacking up the body bags. This “I don’t know what to do” feeling is new to me and I’m scared. Scared stiff.

Second, the hopelessness of the COVID-19 attack is eating at my being. What can I, what should I do to defeat this dreadful enemy? Nobody knows. Our only defense is to hide. Hide from the enemy by staying home, social distancing, wearing a mask, and washing our hands a lot. Okay, I’m doing all of that, but I want to go on the offensive. I’m a Marine, albeit an old one, and I was taught to vigorously go after an enemy, not hide. But how?

We’ve been advised to hide until a vaccine is available in a year or so. This virus is the same kind of enemy as the common cold and our annual flu. What kind of luck have we had in combating those viruses? If I understand it correctly, we create a vaccine for the flu-of-the-season and the flu virus mutates into a new threat requiring a totally new vaccine. This has been going on for how long? We can’t count on a vaccine. We need a plan B. But what?

Thirdly, I’m afraid. Being afraid is a whole new anxiety to me. Sure I was kinda afraid of catching polio as a kid or HIV as an adult, but this new threat scares the hell out of me. I’m afraid for my loved ones. Are they wearing their masks and social distancing? Is my granddaughter keeping my new great-grand daughter safe? I’m afraid to answer the phone or open the newspaper for fear of bad news.

Lastly, I’m angry. We think we know how to let this virus die out, and yet we’re not doing it. We saw the Pope give his Easter Mass to an empty St. Peter’s Square and how the Roman streets were totally empty as the citizens self-quarantined. We also saw how Governor Cuomo managed the pandemic in New York, but we didn’t learn a damn thing. Last night I saw on TV a crowd of unmasked fans at an Alabama high school football game, huge crowds of college kids partying the start of the new school year, and to top it off a quarter million knuckleheads frolicking at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Haven’t we learned anything?

I’m mad as hell and you should be too.

Mostly True Tales

       

These stories might better be called historical fiction because they are about real people and/or real events in history. Bob’s taken the liberty to tell a bit more about little-known people, interject himself into the lives of historical figures, and tell us about real events from the pens of fictional characters.

 

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